STEVE KORNACKI, MSNBC ANCHOR: There`s something new about the Republican opposition to President Obama, it`s got some cracks in it.

On the surface the major speech that President Obama delivered in Galesburg, Illinois, this week may have seen broad and familiar. He was back at Knox College where eight years ago in the spring of 2005, Obama used a commencement address to make his best case for the role of government in building and supporting the middle class.

It`s a case that he has continued to make sense then when he ran for president in 2008, when he championed the stimulus in 2009, when he challenged Republicans to pass the American jobs act in 2011, when he ran for re-election last year and again on Wednesday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This growing inequality is not just morally wrong, it`s bad economics. Because when middle class families have less to spend, guess what, businesses have fewer consumers. When wealth concentrates at the very top, it can inflate stable bubbles that threaten the economy.

When the rungs on the ladder of opportunity grow farther and farther apart, it undermines the very essence of America. That idea if you work hard, you can make it here. And that`s why reversing these trends has to be Washington`s highest priority.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KORNACKI: In that speech, Obama called for more investment in infrastructure, in investment in green energy for combatting high college tuition costs, for making it easier to refinance mortgages and for middle class workers to save for retirement. But now, the reality check. We know what the president faces in Washington. The Republican-controlled House that is not interested in taking action on anything he laid out this week.

Well, pretty much on anything he suggested during his entire presidency. So, why did Obama go ahead and deliver this speech anyway? Why did he choose to do it this week? Well, one answer maybe that there are some important deadlines coming up and more and more Republicans are talking like this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JOHN BOEHNER, (R-OH) HOUSE SPEAKER: We`re not going to raise the debt ceiling without real cuts in spending. It`s as simple as that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KORNACKI: Oh, boy. The debt ceiling. This, again. We are on course to hit it sometime in the late October or early November and even before we get to that, to the debt ceiling, there`s another deadline looming, the end of the fiscal year on September 30th, that there`s no deal to fund the government by then, we could have a shut down.

And so, there is some enthusiasm on the right. There may be growing enthusiasm on the right to use those deadlines as leverage on two fronts. One is budgetary bills to fund key government departments and agencies at radically reduced levels are now taking shape in the house. House Republicans want to acts a thirds of the EPA`s budget. They want to cut funding for the arts in half.

They want to eliminate public broadcasting and grants for low-income students and funning for the labor department are also due to take serious hits, at least, under the plans taking shape there. The other front have to do with, you can probably guess it, Obamacare. The Senate, Utah Republican, Mike Lee, has drafted a letter demanding that his Republican colleagues opposed any bill to fund the government that includes money to implement the Affordable Care Act.

Lee is as conservative as they come, but his letters started to get traction this week with some less strident Republicans. Republicans like Illinois` Mark Kirk and South Dakota`s John Thune who were both reported earlier in the week to have signed it. But that traction is evidently making some other Senate Republicans nervous. John McCain has now spoken out against shutting down the government over Obamacare so as Missouri`s Roy Blunt.

And on Thursday, North Carolina`s Richard Burr called it, quote, "the dumbest idea I`ve ever heard of." By the time Lee`s letter was actually released on Thursday, kirk`s name was no longer on it, neither was John Cornyn, the second ranking Republican in the Senate. He was off it, too. Notably silent in all this, Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell.

The Tea Party right has never really trusted him, and this week, McConnell found out that he will be facing a challenge in the Republican primary next year in Kentucky. It may be an opening in all this for Obama and he started to hint at it in his speech this week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: The good news is the growing number of Republican senators are looking to join their Democratic counterparts and try to get things done in the Senate. For example, they work together on an immigration bill that economists say will boost our economy by more than $1 trillion and strengthen border security and make the system work. Well, you`ve got a faction of Republicans in the House who won`t even give that bill a vote.

And that same group gutted a farm bill that America`s farmers depend on but also America`s most vulnerable children depend on.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KORNACKI: For Obama and Democrats, that`s the goal here, exploit the GOP divisions in the Senate, isolate the Republican house and use speeches like the one Obama gave this week to focus public attention on what`s at stake in the coming budget battle. It`s not going to get Obama all the new investments he`s looking for, investment that he`s been looking for for years, but he could head off another point list in crippling crisis, and by the standard of the last few years, maybe that`s not so bad.

I want to bring in Frank Thorp, NBC News Capitol Hill producer, Lynn Vavreck, author of the forthcoming book "The Gamble," about the 2012 election and a political science professor at the University of California Los Angeles, UCLA, MSNBC political analyst, Joan Walsh, editor of Salon.com, and MSNBC political analyst, Michael Steele, former chairman of the Republican National Committee. So, thanks for joining us, everybody.

There`s a lot to get through here. I guess, I want to start with this idea of sort of holding health care hostage with the money to fund the government. And, I think the story that`s sort of taking shape in the last two days. I got two clips here. This is from -- these are conservative writers from entrepreneurial (ph) saying, you know, drop the disastrous plan to defund the Obamacare.

This is by (ph) New York and another conservative writer. No, the GOP is not going to defund Obamacare. It looked like there was a lot of movement, Michael, earlier in the middle of this week where the Tea Party was exerting pressure on Republicans, particularly the Senate, to sign this Mike Lee letter. They were starting to get what they were looking for and I`m sort of seeing the Republican establishment here really start to push back on this one.

MICHAEL STEELE, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, yes. What it speaks to me is I don`t know what kind of conversations they`re actually having in the Senate caucus so that they come out with a bifurcated, trifurcated voice. So, you have opinions here, opinions there. There`s no unity of message. There`s no confirmation of the direction that they want to take the country, should they shut down the government, you know, not do the debt ceiling deal and repeal Obamacare.

So, this to me speaks to a level of confusion. So, you have an opening for those voices like McCain to now step in and go, OK kids, let`s settle down here. Let the grownups handle this. We`re going to move into a different direction. I think at the end of the day, this is going to be a lot of noise as we`ve seen in this drama before leading up to the end of this fiscal year and the beginning of the next.

There`s going to be the dance. Obamacare is not going to get the fund at the end of the day. I know (INAUDIBLE) a lot of excuse, the strong names as early in the morning. You got to wake up and smell the reality here that you`re not going to defund Obamacare the way everyone is talking about it. At the end of the day, you`re going to cut a deal on the debt ceiling.

So, the question for the party is, how do you position yourselves that we can (ph) on the other side of that going into 2014. Your base is not sitting there ticked off at you, because you`ve left them on the battlefield. And you`re pulling the country in a new direction if you really believe what the president is doing is not good for the country.

KORNACKI: This letter, this Mike Lee letter that we`re talking about, you know, earlier in the week, it was reported to have 15, you know, Republican senators signing it. So, Mark Kirk, you know, sort of one of the more moderate Republicans in the Senate took his name off. Roger Wicker from Mississippi took his name of. John Cornyn, second ranking Republican took his name off.

So, it leaves you with largely, you know, conservative -- like the most noteworthy names on here would be Marco Rubio, you know, from Florida. Some people think maybe he`s trying to make amends for his immigration. The most interesting one for me (INAUDIBLE) Jeff Chiesa who is -- he is the appointed Republican senator from New Jersey by Chris Christie and it may be sort of a little proxy posturing on Christie`s part for 2016.

But, Lynn, I look at this and I`m saying, I`m wondering if this feels a little different than we think back two years ago when we had all the debt ceiling brinkmanship. I`m seeing, am I right, but I`m seeing cracks here on the Republican side that we didn`t see two years ago. has something changed in the last couple of years?

LYNN VAVRECK, UCLA DEPT. OF POLITICAL SCIENCE: I think you`re exactly right. And I think congress at an institution, you know, is at a very interesting point. There`s good news and there`s bad news. So, the good news for members of Congress is that their approval rating as an institution has doubled in the last year. The bad news is is that it`s still like at 10 percent.

So, if you`re a member of this institution, your personal approval rating is probably much higher than that. But Congress as a body is not held in high regard by most voters. And so, one of the things that I think maybe is happening is here`s a way for the senior members of the chamber of both chambers, hopefully, to come out and say, you know, let`s not get ourselves in the position we were in two years ago where we saw our approval ratings as an institution really plummet.

Here`s some ways that we can compromise and have a solution. But, the more Tea Party, you know, conservative members can still stand their ground. And so, everyone sort of enters 2014 where they need to be. People like John McCain are synonymous with their states. Arizona, John McCain, he doesn`t have to really worry about people back home not re-electing him. And so, everybody can play their role.

KORNACKI: What about the president`s role in all this, too, because you know, we`ve looked at the idea, the idea of the bully pulpit has gotten a lot of scrutiny in the last few years, because you know, the president, you know, really -- you know, good at giving speeches.

It hasn`t really moved public opinion and people talk about how, in fact, in a lot of ways when a president weighs in on something, Democrat or Republican just kind of polarizes things in a lot of ways. How do you think the message that Obama is sending this weekend is going to be sending for the next few months plays into the health care and the budget fights this fall?

JOANN WALSH, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I think it`s important on a couple of levels. The speech didn`t break new ground, but like, I`m with James Surowiecki in "The New Yorker" who`s I think the headline was something like boring is not that bad. Boring is not bad. Boring is not bad. These are our problems. Did he say many of the same things in 2005?

Yes, because he`s been incredibly consistent about the problem of economic inequality and what it will take to solve it. So, the speech, itself, was good enough. But the more important thing is that he`s going out on the campaign trail. And he needs to be on the campaign trail because what he has to be about is holding the attention of the Obama coalition, holding the coalition together, educating the coalition, making them long-term voters, making sure that they continue to vote.

2010 was a disaster for Democrats, and he can`t afford we, as Democrats, can`t afford to have voters to say, well, the Republicans are polarizing him and my vote in 2008 and 2012 didn`t do any good. So, I`m going to sit this one out. He`s got to be about having a conversation with voters. Is he going to swing people in the middle? Most research shows that the bully pulpit doesn`t, but talking to his voters is going to be very important over the next year and a half.

KORNACKI: And Frank, let me just -- we talk about the cracks within the Republican ranks on the Senate side, but the House is sort of a player here, too, the Republican-controlled house. There`s a similar letter to the Mike Lee letter circulating on the House side. How do they factor into this? I mean, is the fever to force a showdown over health care dying in the House, too, or was it a different story there?

FRANK THORP, NBC NEWS CAPITOL HILL PRODUCER: Well, I think that it`s kind of, you know -- it`s more about politics than practicality here. I think that most of this strategy is more to kind of give political cover to Senator Rubio in terms of, you know, his opposition from the Tea Party for his immigration reform. But I think that in the House side, they don`t like this strategy. This is not going to happen over on the house side.

You know, House Republican leadership, they look at this as a losing strategy they say that, you know, for two reasons. They say that it`s temporary. You know, it`s a CR. So, it`s a temporary government funding bill. But number two is if this actually happens and the government were to shut down, they`re going to be blamed for it. And that`s a terrible, terrible strategy for them.

I mean, and the only way that they can, you know, possibly definitely lose in 2014 is if they were to shut down the government.

KORNACKI: Is that a message -- does Boehner and Cantor, the Republican leaders now, do they sort of the clout with their own members at this point given all the skepticism that sort of the Tea Party right has towards the party leadership. Can they deliver that message, sort of authoritative lead (ph) to the Tea Party rank and file in the House and tell them, really, don`t do this. Back off. Do they have the clout to do that?

THORP: I think they do, but I think that, you know, more and more that Tea Party faction is kind of alienating themselves within the conference. I mean, for instance, you know, on unrelated issues, Steve King made his comments issues on immigration and kind of gave, you know, the Republican conference and Republican leadership cover on issues that they can point at that and be like, OK, well, you know, they feel that way, but that standpoint is not going to stand.

And so, I think that, you know, Republican leadership cooler heads will wind (ph) up prevailing here. I think that there will be a lot of talk about whether or not they want to try to defund Obamacare, but I think in the end, it`s just not a winning strategy for them.

KORNACKI: So, we`ve got the Obamacare aspect of it, but there`s also just the broader question of funding the government and all the cuts that we now see sort of Republicans in the House are going to try to push for. Whether anything happens with Obamacare, there`s this issue of funding for the government. I want to get into that after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KORNACKI: I want to put some numbers from the NBC poll that came out earlier this week. And this was testing attitudes of Americans towards the tactics of Congressional Republicans. Are they too inflexible when it comes to dealing with President Obama? Fifty-six percent of voters said yes, but they too quick to give in. Eighteen percent said no. The attitudes change a little bit when you limit that to only Republicans or Tea Party Republicans.

But, again, broadly speaking, that`s how Americans -- that`s what Americans are thinking when they looked at the sort of strategy that House Republicans are using. Lynn, I want to take with that in mind look at the other kind of showdown that`s looming here. We talked about, you know, this idea of defunding Obamacare if you put that one aside.

We also have all of these funding bills, these government funding bills taking shape in the House now. The Republican House that make just deep, deep cuts in all sorts of, for instance, there`s this big fight over getting a nominee confirmed for the Environmental Protection Agency, Gina McCarthy, and the Senate filibuster was relaxed then she got through.

And now, the administration has its person in place, and yet, on the House side, they`re basically talking about stripping out, you know, funding for the EPA, putting in all sort of new rules that would bar Gina McCarthy from doing what the president wants her to do. How do you think a number like this, the poll were seeing, blends with this Republican strategy?

VAVRECK: Yes. The other interesting number is the change in this figure over time. And I was looking at this yesterday. And people are moving in exactly the directions that we talked about in the earlier segment. More and more, in both parties. So, even Republican voters, people who we identify as Republicans, say that they want more compromise. And so, I think that`s also going to be an additional component of the pressure that the things that Frank was talking about, the pressure to not have a repeat of 2011.

And so, I think this also picks up on what Joan was saying. Why does Obama go out on a campaign trail to give these speeches? It is to rally his base and his set of voters, but it`s also to get people to put pressure on their members. And presidents have done that for a long time. It`s called going public.

When you lose the power to persuade in the chamber, you have to go to the people and you have to say put pressure on your members. And I think that public opinion is there. And Obama is now leading, doing the elite thing. And so, those two this come together and I think we end up right where he said we would.

STEELE: But Obama is also a little bit in the tank on his numbers. And that`s the other reason why the president is out on the road. I mean, he`s at 45 percent approval in our NBC/"Wall Street Journal" poll. So, the president is feeling the heat inside as well as much as the members may be hearing from their constituency. The White House was also hearing from their constituency.

Many progressives, you know, have been upset with certain moves made by the president over the last and the White House over the last few months. So, all of this comes to this head where they have to get out. The White House still has to get out on the road and Republicans, interestingly enough, don`t feel they need to do that.

I mean, they feel that they`re in tap enough with their base to understand, particularly, Tea Party Republicans, to understand exactly where they need to be --

(CROSSTALK)

KORNACKI: That`s what I wonder. Has a mindset sort of taken hold, especially when you look at the House side for the Republicans that, you know, they -- yes, their party lost the national election last year by five million votes to President Obama, but they -- right now, they have the majority that`s sort of safe in their own districts. They don`t -- worry more about Republican primary challenges --

STEELE: Yes, it can be, I think, in the end. But Republicans are looking probably more at a legislative strategy, And I`ll be interested in your thoughts on this since you (INAUDIBLE) these guys a lot. Much more of a legislative strategy, meaning, we got the House. We want to expand on that. We`ll get the Senate in 2014 and then, you know, have a legislative wall where they can propose bills, pass bills in both chambers and put them on the president`s desk and them -- to veto them.

So, that`s part of that strategy where the White House is looking both an executive and legislative strategy where they feel, you know, our goal, Nancy Pelosi, for example, we want to take what we can out of the House and hold our ground on the Senate. So, it`s a very interesting session.

WALSH: But Michael, I don`t feel legislative strategy. They`re not --

STEELE: For, who, the White House?

WALSH: No. for the Republicans. They`re not standing for anything. The legislative strategy --

STEELE: No, no. This isn`t about standing, this is about giving control.

WALSH: To do what? So, you`re saying, though, they`re controlled to pass bills. What would those bills do? I mean, the issue right now is they want to repeal. It used to be repeal and replace Obamacare. There`s no talk about replacement. Eric Cantor couldn`t even bring his bill --

STEELE: Yes. But there`s a different dynamic that you have control of the Senate and you`ve got conservative Democrats who are going to be up in the next cycle looking at their seats and the Republicans control that Senate seat, that Senate chamber and the House and you put a bill on the table, and then it becomes a real legislative versus executive branch battle.

(CROSSTALK)

KORNACKI: The question I was asking, though, about, you know, sort of this Republicans being locked in maybe, you know, for the next few years to a majority in the House where they have to -- the average Republican member has to, you know, worry more about the Republican primary challenge than --

(CROSSTALK)

KORNACKI: OK, maybe that can -- that`s enough to keep you in control of the House. But you talk about even winning back the Senate. You`re talking about a different electorate there. You`re talking about Republican candidates having to appeal to statewide electorates where, you know, you`re going to have to win over some swing states --

STEELE: Yes. The next cycle, they don`t. The seats that are in play for the Republicans to take control are all red states. They`re not worry about purple in 2014 in terms of the Senate because, you know, you`re looking at places like Montana and West Virginia and check them off.

KORNACKI: We`re going to talk (ph) that later -- fine, let`s just say -- they have the House now. They get the Senate in 2014, but do these -- but don`t these -- what is the value of just getting the Senate if you don`t have the White House and if the tactics that you`re using right now preclude you from getting the White House in 2016. I think that`s what I`m wondering about.

STEELE: Well, I mean, and that`s going to be the challenge. I think that`s going to be part of the dance that they`re going to have to figure out exactly if they put those shoes on, do they really fit well enough for the voters to give them control of the executive branch in 2016 and that`s going to be a risk.

I think this is more of a set up legislatively to really put the pressure by getting bills on the president`s desk that he has to veto and that sets up an argument for 2016.

KORNACKI: But Frank, you know, you cover these guys and you know what -- sort of what they`re thinking. How do they make that balancing act between, you know, hey, we`ve got these members who want to survive in these Republican primary challenges, but we`re also leading a party and we got to win national elections at some point. How do they balance that? What do you think?

THORP: I mean, I think that, you know -- I think part of the strategy here is if they were to take the Senate in 2014, you have a situation that if they were to pass bills out of Congress and President Obama is forced to veto them, all of a sudden, they can kind of switch this blame. You know, what President Obama is able to paint Congress as obstructions right now.

If they`re passing bills that continue to go up to the White House and are vetoed. They can switch that narrative a little bit, and they can be like, what, the president is obstructing our ability to actually, you know, pass legislation. We keep on passing legislation, it`s being vetoed.

But I think that, I mean, in terms of the party kind of figuring out whether or not, you know, they can balancing the different priorities here, I mean, they don`t have to -- the House of Representatives does not have a national point of view very much, if you think about it.

They play to their constituencies. And so, they`re not really forced to think about the big picture other than really House leadership. I mean, so, for them, I mean, if there passing these bills to defund Obamacare, if they`re, you know, passing bills that defund different parts of Obama`s agenda, I mean, that`s a win for them no matter what.

KORNACKI: They`ve certainly, they have certainly passed the bill to defund Obamacare enough in the house.

(CROSSTALK)

KORNACKI: I guess, they could do it in the Senate if they had control of that. But speaking of the Senate, we started talking a little bit about the fracture and Republican side. I want to return to that in a minute, because I want to talk specifically about sort of the source of the fracture, which likely (ph) John McCain. I want to talk about him when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KORNACKI: So, I want to go back to the Senate side here because we sort of started this by talking about how pretty evident fracturing on the Republican side in the senate and one of the sources of this has been John McCain. You know, John McCain who was not Mitch McConnell, it was John McCain who sort of cut the deal on the filibuster a few weeks ago.

It`s John McCain who was the first voice, the first Republican voice in the senate to say, no, this idea of, you know, we`re going to defund Obamacare with the debt ceiling, that we`re not going to do that. You know, so if John McCain sort of the old John McCain people knew about a decade ago, I think I know what this comes from. I want to play a back and forth here and then explain.

You got to go back a couple months. This is when the Senate, you know, the big Republican moment (ph) for years was the Democrats who said it wouldn`t pass a budget. Well, the Democrats passed a budget and then the House wouldn`t file a suit because there was a concern, I should say, among some Senate Republicans that doing this would, if you got into a conflict between a Senate and a House that they became --

So, basically set up a fight where the Tea Party peers in the Senate were on one side and John McCain was on the other side and there`s this back and forth between John McCain and Ted Cruz. I will play John McCain first.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN, (R) ARIZONA: We`re here to vote. We`re not here to block things. We`re here to articulate our positions on the issues in the best and possible and most eloquent way we can and do what we can for the good of the country and then let the process move forward.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KORNACKI: So, he was saying that he wanted the Senate to send conferees to meet with the House and Ted Cruz was saying, no, we can`t do that. We can`t trust them. And this was Ted Cruz`s response.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ, (R) TEXAS: It has been suggested that those of us who are fighting to defend liberty, fighting to turn around the out of control spending and out of control debt in this country, fighting to defend the constitution, it has been suggested that we are wacko birds. Well, if that is the case, I will suggest to my friend from Arizona, there may be more wacko birds in the Senate than is suspected.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KORNACKI: My theory of John McCain`s politics is that they reflect who he is most aggrieved with at any given moment. And it was -- he lost to George W. Bush in a bitter 2000 primary in the Republican, you know, presidential race and then suddenly he became every Democrats` favorite Republican and he wanted the patients` bill of rights and, you know, some gun regulations.

John McCain really started voting with Democrats a lot more after 2000, you know. When Obama beat him in 2008, he became -- I think we all remember the John McCain of the last few years. Now, I think Ted Cruz has really ticked him off and ted Cruz is -- the approach that Ted Cruz has brought to the Senate and the support that Ted Cruz has gotten from others in the Senate has really ticked off John McCain.

And I think we`re no longer seeing the John McCain who wants revenge on a Barack Obama. We`re seeing the John McCain who wants to revenge on ted Cruz.

WALSH: Well, you know, it`s a very interesting battle over sending -- creating conference committee. That you do not trust the system to work, that you don`t trust the House Republicans. Look, you got a majority. I mean, McCain said this, you got a majority over there. They`re very conservative. It`s not like they`re going to immediately cave in the face of a Senate budget being more liberal.

Let the system work. This is the way it`s been done. And you know, Cruz is saying, I don`t care how it`s been done. We`re here to block, not to create. And that`s the new mantra. And John McCain still has this notion that, you know, people win elections. You fight it out, and then, you fight out, fight it out over policy.

This notion that all you need to do is block is relatively new or at a least it`s new in terms of it being, not majority sentiment, but a widely held sentiment in the Congress.

KORNACKI: But, Michael, my sense is, you know, within the world of Washington maybe on Capitol Hill, John McCain maybe is the favorite in this, the McCain versus Cruz battle. But when it comes to the Republican base, the message of Ted Cruz seems to be the resonate one right now. That seems problematic.

STEELE: And the test will be is that message -- an electable message. In other words, as it translate in the post-2012 dynamics of, you know, going into 2014 with these Congressional seats on the line, the Senate on the line, and the polls that are reflecting still a great deal of ambivalence, if not outright, you know, rejection of the Republicans messaging on position on some of these issues.

So, the real battle, I think you positive (ph) correctly between a Ted Cruz and a John McCain is really, I think, a clear example of the fracturing within the party of where do we go and how do we get there to Joan`s part.

If you can`t point, if you can`t have a conference bill go to the members of your own party who control the other chamber, that speaks a lot to me, at least, that within the party there`s still a whole lot of house cleaning to be done and the question is, will John McCain view prevail ultimately going into 2014 or will the Ted Cruz view?

KORNACKI: And as -- again, we talk about John McCain, we talk about Ted Cruz. The name we`re not mentioning in this is the official leader of the Senate Republicans, Mitch McConnell. There are some reasons for that. One of them became apparent this week and we`re going to talk about that after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KORNACKI: We`re talking about sort of the forgotten man in the Senate right now to a degree, and it`s Mitch McConnell. And one of the reasons has to do with what happened this week. He found out he is going to be challenged in the Republican primary in Kentucky next year. Let`s just play, first of all, we have sort of dueling ads.

They`re already up on the airwaves in Kentucky for this race. First of all, this is Matt Bevin. This is going to be his challenger in next year`s primary. This is his ad.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mitch McConnell has had a long career in politics. But after 30 years in Washington, is his leadership really the best that we can do?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Matt Bevin says he`s a conservative businessman, but when his Connecticut businesses needed help, Bevin took $200, 000 in taxpayer bailouts even though Bevin failed to pay taxes. Bevin`s business was assessed at least eight liens for not paying taxes.

And Bevin`s company was the number one tax delinquent. Bevin`s company failed to pay taxes, then got a taxpayer bailout. Bailout Bevin, not a Kentucky conservative.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KORNACKI: There`s a couple -- this is significant for a couple different reasons. I mean, let`s -- before we even get to Kentucky, let`s look at what this has done to Mitch McConnell in his role as the Republican leader in the Senate, because we talk about the sort of stalemate of the filibusters when it came time to cut a deal there. Mitch McConnell was not, you know, was not part of that.

It`s really been John McCain and a number of others sort of Senate -- whatever you want to call them, Frank, who have sort of taken the initiative and it`s Mitch McConnell who`s sort of been in opposition to them.

It seems to me that this is -- his hands are basically tied in terms of being a leader until and unless he gets through this primary because anything he does that go against the Tea Party types, with the Mike Lee, you know, Ted Cruz folks want is going to get him in trouble in this primary next year.

THORP: Yes, exactly. And I think that, you know, John McCain`s leadership on issues such as the filibuster and immigration, you know, it`s questionable whether or not that will transfer to these fiscal fights that are going to be coming up here in the next couple months. And the hard line that Senator McConnell is going to have to take on these issues is going to have to align more with what he`s going to have to deal with this primary.

You know, he`s going to have to be taken a more hardline stance on this which is going to line-up with the more conservative members of his conference.

But I think that, you know, we`re going to see, it will be interesting to see whether or not this primary is really going to force him to turn his strategy to hyperconservative strategy in terms of, you know, when it comes to CR, and comes to the debt ceiling, which is going to happen here in the next three months.

KORNACKI: I mean, we`ve got -- there are statements here the club for growth, you know, which always encouraging Republican primary challenge, usually is, you know, the Senate conservatives fund which Jim DeMint had started a couple of years ago, and they`re basically saying, hey, we`re open to supporting Bevin.

We`re not sure we`re going to back McConnell and it just seems like they`ve got -- this is a perfect thing for every conservative, for every Tea Party group in the country because they have the perfect leverage now to dangle over Mitch McConnell for the next year. I mean, Lynn, what does that do to the Senate.

We talk about how dysfunctional elections (ph) when the Senate leader, Republican leader, is facing something like this. What does that do to the functioning of the Senate?

VAVRECK: Well, I think this is a good reason why you see John McCain sort of out front doing the things you do, that things that he is doing. It reminds me of the line from "A Few Good Men," you know, you need me on that wall. And so, like McConnell needs McCain to be out there, doing the bargaining and compromising because he now, himself, is constrained and can`t do that.

But I think the party -- I think they do understand to the extent that there is a party and it does care about its branding. That they can`t have 2011 all over again. So, I think that a lot of the reason you see McCain. It`s natural for him, too, as you said. He plays that maverick role. But a lot of the reason that the opportunity now is there for him to go out and do this is because of the constraints that are faced by the leadership.

THORP: With that, it points out, though, is that -- I mean, if he compromises, he`s going to get attacked for it. So, that`s the issue that he really faces in this situation that if he comes to the table and he`s like, OK, you know what, we`ll give you a little bit of what you want for, you know, a little bit of what we want, he`s going to get attacked by it and he`s going to be incredibly aware of that.

KORNACKI: Michael, what is it that -- I know Mitch McConnell has been in Washington for 30 years. You know, 1984 he got elected. You know, so, he sort of -- you know, he sort of wreaks of entrenchment, I guess, you can say. But is that what it is that conservatives do?

STEELE: Oh, yes.

KORNACKI: Because I mean, if the average Democrat looks at Mitch McConnell for the last two years and he drives them crazy and this is a guy who said, you know, our top goal is to defeat President Obama, to deny him a second term. He`s basically cooperated next to nothing with the administration and yet he`s vulnerable to a conservative challenge.

STEELE: One of the last meetings I had as RNC chairman was with Tea Party activists around the country after the 2010 elections. And we were high fiving and very celebratory, but then, there was a moment in the meeting in which several of the leaders said the future is in our hands.

And, you know, just as we elected these folks this year, we will unelect them in outyears if they are not true to the economic discipline that they said that they`re going to hold, which is why you see in the House, for example, those members, you know, so strongly hold on to that line.

You look at this race and that`s exactly what you`re seeing play out here is that that Tea Party element within the party asserting itself in these primaries to hold the line with the incumbent in the case of a McConnell and the off chance that they knocked him off, then you`re going to have that further, you know, expansion of that point of view within the party within the establishment of the party, which is where a lot of the Tea Party have their biggest fight.

So, you know, I find it very interesting right now for McConnell, to your point, that he`s got to sort of do this sort of tight rope walk knowing that, you know, constantly over his shoulder, he`s going to have this incoming regardless of what he does.

(CROSSTALK)

STEELE: Regardless of what he does --

KORNACKI: He`s got this on this shoulder. On the other shoulder is, you know, if he gets through the republican primary, he`s in danger of losing to a Democrat. It`s one of the few very Senate races in the country where Democrats have a chance to knock off a Republican and I want to get into that after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KORNACKI: So, just started to talk there about, you know, there is a Democrat running, Alison Grimes in Kentucky for Mitch McConnell`s senate seat and Mitch McConnell polls have shown is the imperialist (ph) shape for an incumbent, now he`s buttress (ph) in the sense that Kentucky is a red state. You know, and in 2014, you know, the national tide, if there is one, is more likely to be, you know, helpful to the Republicans than Democrats.

So, he`s got a few things or anybody who`d be the Republican candidate in Kentucky in 2014 has a few things to, you know, going for him. But Alison Grimes is the rare Democrat who has a chance next year, Joan, to take out in incumbent, a Republican.

WALSH: Absolutely. And she is tough. I mean, Mitch McConnell came out with this really cheesy but kind of catchy auto tune ad using one of her old ads and it was all about what rhymes with Alison Lundergan Grimes, and it showed her to -- her original ad from two years ago with her two adorable grandmas and it mocks the ad and it mocks her.

Fine, everybody got a lot of laughs. Well, she came out, people should go to the web and look at this ad. It`s almost four minutes long, so they`re going to have to cut it off. She came out with an ad this week that is so brilliant. It strikes back at Mitch directly. It also features the fact that one of those sweet grandmas died.

So, the subtext is, how dare you mock my dead grandma, Mitch McConnell. And it has the surviving grandma saying let`s do this for Thelma, the grandmother who died. It`s both poignant and hilarious. And it shows she doesn`t play and she`s not afraid of him and she knows she`s got a big smile and she talks about what she`s going to do for Kentucky. She knows that this is a very deeply unpopular man on both sides of the aisle.

KORNACKI: It really seems like -- ancient history now, but in a few months ago, Ashley Judd was talking about running, you know, in this race against Mitch McConnell and the McConnell team was super aggressive in trying to take her out of the race, to put, you know, damaging stuff out there about her, and I think they were trying to send a message there to other potential camps (ph) and hey, this is what you`re in for.

You know, but between this grimes video that we have this week, between Bevin stepping forward now, it seemed like McConnell people were not able to accomplish that.

THORP: And I think, you know, they have a situation where -- I mean, with Ashley Judd, they had a lot of awful research on her. They were focusing on her so much and they didn`t have a primary opponent at that time. And right now, what they have to do is they -- I mean, right out of the gate, they`re focusing on Bevin, but they`re not focusing on grimes.

And, they don`t have as much, you know, dirt on Grimes. So, they`re in a kind of situation where they have to fend off this Tea Party contender, but -- and then that takes away their focus from who would potentially really be his opponent, which is Grimes.

STEELE: Well, the issue for me in just looking how this is opening is having McConnell`s team put out a hit ad, you know, an attack ad on Bevins. I don`t get it, number one, because all you`re doing is elevating Bevin`s profile statewide. Two, the substance of the argument, I think, at this stage in the campaign, who cares? I mean, you know, Connecticut, you know, businessman.

If the height of the recession has financial problems, OK, that`s news. So, I think that Bevin has positioned himself through his ad for folks to really take a good look at him and that`s reinforced by McConnell attacking. So, the saying or the thinking goes, while if McConnell is coming after this guy right out of the box, there must be something he fears. There must be something about him that we should take a look at.

(CROSSTALK)

KORNACKI: Well, this is a story 2010-2012, these Republican Senate incumbents, vetted (ph) in (INAUDIBLE) 2012. You know, I got to feel it`s going to be somebody in 2014 who loses one of these challenges, and Mitch McConnell, just as likely as anybody else, I think at this point. The most important number in the battle for Senate control, that`s next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KORNACKI: If you had to pick one number to set the stage for the battle for control the U.S. Senate next year, it would probably be seven. Seven. That is the number of Democratic held seats that are up in 2014 in states that voted for Mitt Romney last year. These are Democratic seats in red states and they make the right these targets for Republicans and there are going to be seven of those targets for Republicans to go after next year.

What does that mean in the big picture? Well, let`s have a look. Right now, at this moment, there are 52 Democrats in the Senate, 46 Republicans, and two independents. Those two independents, Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine, they both caucus with the Democrats. So, for all intents and purposes, Democrats now control the Senate 54-46.

And that number comes with an asterisk because one of those Republican seats is a temporary senator from New Jersey, Jeff Chiesa, who was appointed a couple of months ago by Chris Christie and who isn`t running in the special election. But Cory Booker is running in that special election and while a few Democrats and Republicans are nominally competing against him, the polls say they have a snowball chance in Ecuador who actually knocking him off.

So, let`s stipulate that Booker is probably going to win the New Jersey special election this October and that means that Democrats will head into the 2014 elections with a 55-45 advantage in the Senate. And since Vice President Joe Biden is there to break any ties, that will mean the Democrats can suffer a net loss of up to five seats next year and still hang on to the chamber.

OK. So, now, let`s take a look at the battleground with all that in mind. Here are all of the seats that are going to be up in 2014. There are 35 of them, and there are only 34 states lighting up there because there`s actually going to be two races in South Carolina. Lindsey Graham who is going to be up next year and appointed senator, Tim Scott, who`s going to be seeking to win the final two years on Jim DeMint`s term.

So, we have those 35 races and we can take a lot of them off the board right now, because they`re held by one party and there`s no reason to suspect that party is going to lose next year. We can take 19 of them off the board, in fact, right there. Nineteen of those 35 off the board. They are just not going to change hands next year.

And we can actually go a step further than that. Here are states where it`s looking more and more likely that the incumbent party will hold on. Seven more seats, those are all seven Democratic seats. They may not end up being that competitive next year. They could be, but right now, Democratic incumbents in the states are well positioned and Republicans have been struggling to recruit strong candidates.

So, if we take all those seats off the board, if we say that the same party that holds them now hold them after the 2014 elections, that brings us down to a battleground of nine seats. Nine competitive races in which Republicans will need to post a net gain of at least six seats if they`re going to win back control of the Senate next year.

And that sounds like a tall order and it is, but it brings us back to that all-important number we said at the top. Seven. Because those nine include all seven of those seats that Democrats now hold from states that voted for Mitt Romney, those seven targets for Republicans, and here they are. Each of this seat is at risk for Democrats and some more than others.

Take West Virginia, for example, Barack Obama lost that state by 27 points last year. And state`s long-time Democratic senator, Jay Rockefeller was retiring. Republicans have recruited the candidate that they wanted and so it`s going to be a likely Republican pickup right now. Ditto for South Dakota where Obama lost by 18 points last year when Democratic Tim Johnson is retiring.

And maybe from Montana, too, where Obama lost by 14 where Democrat Max Baucus is retiring and with Democrat`s dream candidate, former governor, Brian Schweitzer, recently announced that he wouldn`t run. Those matched (ph) three very gettable seats for the GOP. And there are the four red state Democratic incumbents who are running for re-election next year.

You`ve got Mark Begich in Alaska. You got Kay Hagan in North Carolina, Mark Pryor in Arkansas, Mary Landrieu in Louisiana. This is where the Republicans need to do their damage if they`re going to win back the Senate.

Unless, they can put one or two of those seats that doesn`t look competitive right now into play, they`re going to have to win six of these seven seats, six of those seven red state Democratic seats if they`re going to win back the Senate and even that might not be enough, because there are two opportunities for Democrats to win Republican seats next year. One we just talked about.

That`s in Kentucky with Mitch McConnell. The other one is in Georgia, red state of Georgia where Republican Saxby Chambliss is retiring where the crowded GOP primary has attracted no shortage of far right candidates who have the potential to unnerve general election voters and to give Democrats a chance of winning.

And just this week, in fact, Democrats go good news in Georgia. So, when Michelle Nunn, her father, Sam Nunn, you may remember him, he represented the state for fours terms in the Senate, she announced she`s going to run for the Senate for her father`s old Senate seat in 2014. Democrats can win in Kentucky or if they can win in Georgia or if they can win in both, that would pretty much blow up any chance that Republicans have of taking back the chamber in 2014.

So, we`re going to talk a little bit about the 2014 Senate landscape, about some serious self-imposed obstacles that could thwart the GOP, and about what consequences next year`s outcome will have for the rest of the Obama presidency and maybe for the presidency after that. We`re going to talk about that after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KORNACKI: We`re talking about the Senate landscape for 2014, what it could mean for the rest of the Obama presidency.

And we are with: MSNBC political analyst Joan Walsh. She`s also with Salon.com.

MSNBC political analyst Michael Steele, former chairman of the RNC.

Frank Thorp, NBC News Capitol Hill producer.

And Lynn Vavreck, political science professor at UCLA.

So, I wanted to talk a little bit about some of the trends I think that are going to define 2014, the thing that, you know, we talked about with McConnell, that I`m always looking for is, you know, are any sort of unknown Tea Party candidates going to upend the process for Republicans, you know, win a primary and make a race that`s not on anybody`s map competitive.

Sort of part and parcel with Georgia. I want to look particularly to Georgia. I mentioned it there. It`s a state where the demographics are changing a lot. It`s becoming more diverse, you know, a less diverse, you know, less Republican state. It`s still a pretty reliable state for Republicans but you can see it changing.

There`s an opening there because Saxby Chambliss, the Republican incumbent, is not running for re-election, and it has attracted a very, very wide field of Republican candidates who are very, very conservative, in a way that I think could -- as I said in that piece, could unnerve general election voters.

To give you an idea of this, this was just a couple months ago. Phil Gingrey, he`s a congressman from Georgia, one of the candidates. And this was him on the House floor. This got a lot of attention a couple months ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. PHIL GINGREY (R), GEORGIA: Maybe part of the problem is we need to go back into the schools at a very early age, maybe at the grade school level, and have a class for the young girls and have a class for the young boys and say, you know, this is what`s important. You know, this is what a father does that is maybe a little -- a little different, maybe a little bit better than the talents a mom has in a certain area, and same thing for the young girls. You know, this is what a mom does. This is what is important from the standpoint of that union, which we call marriage.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KORNACKI: So, Michael, we start with -- he`s talking about basically let`s have the school teach traditional rules --

MICHAEL STEELE, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Why do you have to come with me --

(LAUGHTER)

KORNACKI: How many -- it just, you think of what happened with Murdoch last year in Indiana and everybody thinks of Todd Akin and the Republicans go down and Republican men go down the road of talking about issues like this. They kind of -- and it seems like, I`m looking at Georgia and I`m like, I`ve seen the next Missouri, I`m seeing the next Indiana. I`m seeing, you know, it`s going to be Gingrich. It`s going to be, you know, Paul Braun is running. One of these guys are going to get the nomination, and it`s going to be real problems for the Republicans.

STEELE: Mothers and father, husbands and wives, parents of all stripes will decide what messages they want to send to their children. I don`t need a congressman from Georgia. I don`t need a congressman in Maryland. I don`t need anyone in elected office telling me what standards I should set for my kids.

So, we need to get out of that business, number one. OK? Just get out of it.

You raise your kids the way you want. If you need to pull you grade schooler out, and have that conversation. God bless. You have it. I will do what I want with mine, number one.

Number two, this is not where the country is. We do not need elected officials telling us how to live our lives. What we need elected officials to do to get off their behinds and affect policy, to change the structure of government so that it works for people, as opposed to against people.

That`s what people are looking for. So, the more Republicans stand in the well of the Congress, whether there`s one person sitting there listening to that person or not, talk about this stuff, the more people move away from the party, the more they move away from the message which, again, conflicted as it is, it`s still a message out there.

And, so, I just, I really am tired of it. I just need --

(CROSSTALK)

KORNACKI: -- Republican primary voters keep rewarding it, too.

JOAN WALSH, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: And I appreciate you saying that, Michael. But the problem is this is what a lot of Republicans really believe.

The problem with the Akin remarks and the Mourdock remarks was that they were tin-eared and they went into too much detail, which they did. But it also exposed the fact that this is has been the language of the Republican Party platform since what? 1992, I think.

Again, you know, you got people. Talk about the nanny state. We`re going to go into the schools and tell you what the father does is better than what the mother does and instruct you in ancient patriarchal sex roles. No, we`re not and you are going to be punished.

I think it`s interesting. I mean, I think she`s facing an uphill battle. But what you see in a lot of red states is that women may hold the key to turning those states purple or blue. And so, you`ve got a Michelle Nunn, you`ve got an Allison Grimes, you`ve got a Wendy Davis in Texas who people are excited about.

It may not happen in 2014, but that and the emerging Obama coalition is going to turn a lot of these red states purple.

STEELE: It`s not just Democrat women. I am really looking for Republican women to tell these men to shut up, as well. And to really step into that breach and really speak to these -- to speak to the issues that Americans are more concerned about and send back the message. We don`t need as a party to go out there and tell people how to live their lives. We need to be as a party putting in place those structures to help them live those lives.

KORNACKI: The story in 2010, Democrats walking 2010 elections with a pretty big advantage in the Senate. But Republicans left seats on the table. That was the story in 2010. They nominated like Christine O`Donnell. You know, Sharron Angle, (INAUDIBLE) in Colorado. They left winnable seats on the table.

2012 at the start of that cycle, the conventional wisdom was -- this is bad for Republicans. You know, favorable math and they don`t have to make up that much ground. They end up losing two seats in 2012. Some of it was because nominating Tom Akin types. But some of it was also, you know, sort of more establishment type Republicans, like Tommy Thompson in Wisconsin who lost a Senate race last year. It seemed like the Republican label itself was an albatross.

LYNN VAVRECK, UCLA DEPT. OF POLITICAL SCIENCE: I think that there are a couple things going on when you think about these congressional elections. One of the differences between `10 and `12 is that `12 is a presidential election year, too. It brings a different set of voters into the electorate and because the economy was growing, growing slowly, but still growing and that benefits the incumbent party in the White House, you know, Democrats get a little bit of push from that nationally. So, there are coattails.

And, so, those presidential years are really different from the off-years. And, so, now we`re entering an off year and we know this happens all the time that the president`s party will surge and pick up seats in the on year presidential elections and decline in the off years. And, so, you know, we`re in one of those years where we would expect to see some Democrat losses.

But I think you`re exactly right at hitting at the sweet spot. If the out party, Republican Party, you know, they start nominating people who cannot win general elections, then the surge and decline, that pattern might not hold.

And so, I think this really is the interesting elections to watch coming up for 2014 are those Republican primary elections. And I`m not so sure that the conversation about morals and can women change that, I`m not so sure we`re going to see a lot of that playing out just because I think most Americans think that -- you know, there`s a little bit of a change here on the social questions and most people realize that conversations like that are not -- they`re not socially desirable. They`re undesirable.

And even though they might hold those opinions, we shouldn`t be talking about them.

FRANK THORP, NBC NEWS: To Lynn`s point. There is a six-year itch. Every time there is a president, five of the six times this happened and since the `50s, you know, the president`s party loses seats. The average is actually six.

So, I mean, history is going against Democrats in this particular instance. But, you know, Republicans need to make sure that they do is not make the same mistakes they made in 2012. Gingrey is a perfect example, though. I mean, he actually said that, you know, Akin was partly right with his legitimate comments and that was a big deal back then.

So, not only Gingrey but Paul Broun have kind of made-for-TV quotes for ads to run against them, and I think that Democrats kind of brag about the fact that they don`t have any primary opponents for the candidates that they actually do have. I mean, there a lot of states where they don`t have any candidates at all. West Virginia is a perfect example of that. I think that, I mean, Republicans are really trying to focus now on not making the same mistakes that they made in 2012.

STEELE: The problem with the Gingrey comments is they splatter over the entire party. So, then you have candidates who aren`t even -- nowhere near the state of Georgia, having to defend or explain or somehow express an opinion on the comment that a congressman somewhere else has made.

So, what the party needs to do, which is why I reference women speaking -- Republican women sort of are stepping in this breach, is to break that cycle where some crazy comment is made over there and standing over here. I`ve got to now look at this voter and defend something that I knew nothing about or had anything to do with.

WALSH: Well, it`s also great that you`ve got somebody in your old shop, the NRC, saying -- defending the lack of female candidates in 2016 saying the presidential race isn`t a beauty contest.

STEELE: Yes.

WALSH: Where do they get these people?

KORNACKI: You talk about the brand. I mean, that really was -- that really was the story, I think, of 2012. It wasn`t just Akin, these are other states that Republicans also lost.

I want to thank MSNBC political Joan Walsh of Salon.com, and Frank Thorp of NBC News.

KORNACKI: A major act of voter suppression, and really, there`s nothing you can call this except suppression. They moved closer to becoming law in North Carolina late Thursday night. They`ll replace far-reaching new restrictions on voting and is widely seen as the most draconian voter ID law in the country.

This comes two days after the Justice Department took steps to restore some of the provisions stripped by the Voting Rights Act by the Supreme Court last month. The court, as you may recall, gutted Section 5 of the VRA, which required areas with histories of voter, discrimination, to seek approval from the Justice Department, before making changes to their voting laws. Immediately after that ruling, Texas took advantage of the end of the preclearance requirement to enact a strict voter ID law, and to formally adopt controversial congressional maps.

Those maps are being challenged by minority groups. And on Thursday, attorney Eric Holder announced the Justice Department would hold them in asking a federal court to invoke a different section of the VRA to reinstate preclearance requirement for Texas.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ERIC HOLDER, ATTORNEY GENERAL: Even as Congress considers updates to the Voting Rights Act, we plan, in the meantime, to fully utilize the laws remaining sections to ensure that the voting rights of all American citizens are protected. Today, I am announcing that the Justice Department will ask a federal court in Texas to subject the state of Texas to a preclearance regime similar to the one required by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KORNACKI: Holder vowed that the Texas lawsuit will not be the Justice Department`s only effort to protect voting rights in the wake of the Supreme Court`s ruling. Texas is only one of several states where Republican efforts to enact voter ID laws are in the news right now.

In Pennsylvania, a trial challenging the state`s voter ID law, a law that was blocked from implementation by a judge, just before last year`s election. Trial has entered its second week. Measure in North Carolina goes farther than most. Among others, it would shorten early voting from 17 days to 10 days, would end the same-day registration during the early voting period and extend voting hours due to long lines at the polls. That bill is now going to the desk of the Republican governor of North Carolina, Pat McCrory. The governor has said yesterday that the law is, quote, "a fair law" and that he will sign it.

I want to bring in comedian Lizz Winstead, co-creator of "The Daily Show," and author of the book "Lizz Free or Die."

Basil Smikle, Jr., a Democratic political consultant and former member of Hillary Clinton`s staff in the U.S. Senate.

So, Texas and North Carolina, I want to kind of take them separately. We have the action from the Justice Department, Basil, is in Texas right now. The idea here is basically section 5 has kind of been stripped away from the Voting Rights Act and section 3 still exists. This is the bail-in section of the Voting Rights Act where anybody can position the court and say, jurisdiction X belongs in the Voting Rights Act.

What do you make of this strategy? Is this something that -- you think it work in Texas? Do you think it`s a model for elsewhere? Or is this not really a sustainable long term strategy?

BASIL SMIKLE, JR., DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Unfortunately, I believe it is the only thing they have left to do -- and I`m not sure it is going to work in Texas. It might actually work in North Carolina. But, unfortunately, the Justice Department`s hands are tied here and I`m not sure that there is much recourse beyond that.

With -- and you mentioned something about early voting early on and you`re talking about ways in which minorities use early voting and other avenues that they have at their disposal. You`re cutting out a significant percentages of communities are probably going to lose their right to vote. And, unfortunately, as much as the attorney general may say I really do think his hands are tied.

KORNACKI: Well, I want to talk more specifically about early voting in North Carolina for a minute. Just to stay in Texas.

Michael, what do you make of this? What do you make of the -- look, the Republican leaders in Texas, you have Rick Perry immediately issuing a statement saying, this is Obama`s war on Texas. He`s ignoring the Supreme Court. Greg Abbot who is the attorney general and Republican attorney general in Texas, he`s running to succeed Perry`s governor.

You know, they`re basically saying -- he has actually said, I think he`s defined his job as I wake up, go to the office, I sue the government and I go home. So, politically, their reaction to this is sort of bring it on, Justice Department. We like this fight, it plays well with our base.

STEELE: Sure.

KORNACKI: But you as a Republican, what do you make of this when you see what the administration is doing here?

STEELE: Look, I think the Supreme Court did what the Supreme Court said it would do five years ago in what early ruling on the Voting Rights Act, which was to say, look, this needs to be updated. And put it back in the hands of Congress. That`s one piece, how do the states respond to that? Is to take advantage of the void that`s been created until there is federal law that says otherwise. And so, Texas like North Carolina, like many other states, is going to make that move and that play.

My -- my caution to Republicans in Texas or any place else around the country will be at the South, the North or the West is keep in mind. Going into 2014, you do not want the sort of don`t want the Voting Rights Act hanging over your head, how you treat this issue is being treated very carefully by members of the minority community, not just the far left or progressives, white women, those voting center that you so desperately need and also paying attention on how you respond to this opportunity, one.

Two, the party has to understand and appreciate historically our link to this issue. Everett Dirksen, the Senate minority leader, Republican, conservative, was the champion of this law, helped Lyndon Johnson get it through the Senate and get it passed. Said we must do this now and this is in the best interest of the country. What changed since 1965?

KORNACKI: Republican parties changed.

(CROSSTALK)

STEELE: But that`s -- you cannot lose sight of that historic link that we have to this. So, I just think, you know, Texas is going to do what Texas is going to do, but I think at the end of the day, the Congress needs to look at this issue and basically include everybody. Not just segregating certain states, but include every state in the union under this revised updated act.

KORNACKI: Lizz, practically speaking, though, we had hearings in the Senate and the House actually ended up doing some kind of a hearing but I don`t hear anybody who sort of expects right now that the Republicans and the House are going to embrace what Michael just talked about.

LIZZ WINSTEAD, COMEDIAN: No. And I think --

STEELE: But there is always hope.

WINSTEAD: Honey, I respect you for your hope. It`s admirable.

If somebody takes in what all you smart people think and take it in and swallow it, first of all, there is no problem. It`s like this weird, when I talk in my circles. It`s like there was more women diagnosed with prostate cancer than there were like voter suppression and problems. So, the fact this is happening is annoying.

But the second part of it for me is when you look at the laws that have already started going down in Texas and North Carolina, that have already disenfranchised people. When you say to 70,000 people who are unemployed, you know what, you`re not getting any more checks, 100,000 more people are going to end up screwed. And you just build and build and build to this point now where we`re saying, and we`re going to make it really awful for you to vote. They`re counting on people saying, I just can`t.

STEELE: Right.

KORNACKI: I want to pick that point up in a minute and look specifically at North Carolina, some interesting statistics about what early statistics have done to North Carolina and specifically, you know, what happened in 2012 with that, with that attitude that Lizz was just talking about. We`ll pick it up after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

So, I want to talk about what`s going on in North Carolina right now with this new law. Voter ID, it`s broader than voter ID. There are strict, you know, voter ID requirements but it also curtails early voting period. It basically says if you`re standing in line, if the polls close at 8:00 p.m., you haven`t voted yet, you may not be able to vote. Standard in most other states is, if you`re in line at 8:00, you`re going to vote.

It also basically deputizes other voters and encourages other voters to challenge suspicious-looking voters at the polls. We`re trying to pit neighbor against neighbor. It really -- honestly, seems like an awful piece of legislation but, Lynn, if you go back and look at the history of early voting laws in this country, they date back as far as I can tell to about 1985, and it was Republicans in Texas in South Texas. It was Republicans who want early voting because it will make it easier for members of the community who couldn`t get to the distant poll places.

You know, make it easier to vote. It was a bipartisan really until the last couple of years. What has happened on this?

VAVRECK: Yes, there`s a couple things that are important to think about when we have this conversation. And, first, I just want to say that it is, I think always important to take disenfranchisement seriously. So, let`s just stipulate that, but when you look back at some of the reforms that have been made to ease the barriers to turn out.

And most of those are to do with registration. Same-day registration, the motor voter bill, where you can register at the DMV and all those kinds of things, and when we look at the effect of those things and the fact is that they increase participation but among the same group of voters who typically turn out in elections.

So, the big effect for motor voter was to increase the registration among white voters in the sort of middle and upper classes. Same thing with same-day registration, effects of same-day registration mobilize young voters.

So, we`re trying to get to that core group that has sort of been left out of the participation, left out of the process and all these reforms are not getting there. And, so, you know, it`s -- I wish that we could stop on both sides using scare tactics like voter fraud and voter suppression.

And, you know, really talk about the fact that all these reforms have had very small effects. And it`s really hard to change people`s habits of voting. And that picks up on what Lizz was saying, that if we start to get people interested in politics, interested in politics is a huge predictor of whether someone turns out in an election. So --

KORNACKI: Well, there`s actually another provision of this North Carolina thing. There`s a program to encourage to get high school students interested in politics and to encourage them to vote and help them register to vote. That`s eliminated under this, too.

SMIKLE: It seems like all the coalition that brought Obama to the table that`s slowly being whittled away. Young people who -- college students who Republicans have lost in the last few elections. It seems like North Carolina is just still upset that Obama won back in 2008.

But in terms of voter fraud, I mean, the instance of voter fraud in North Carolina is like less than 0.01 percent,

VAVRECK: Exactly.

SMIKLE: And yet, we created a whole set of laws now to essentially go after that less than 0.01 of a percent. But it`s going to disenfranchise millions of people.

VAVRECK: I want to like -- this is where I want us to be careful with the claims that we make. You know, just because you have an early voting period that`s two weeks and you see people turning out for those two weeks and then you say, what happens if we shorten it to one week? It isn`t -- it isn`t just a take away that all the people who voted in those first seven days now will be disenfranchised and won`t vote.

People who vote are interested in politics and they will know that they now only have seven days and they will figure it out. And they will go --

KORNACKI: I think part of it, though, you looked at like Ohio last year where they shortened -- the secretary of state shortened the early voting period and made it a lot tougher than it had been and we saw on the news these six-hour lines, eight-hour lines and I think the fear there is maybe the intent to vote still exists for people, but they show up. How many people can give up eight hours a day to vote? How many people should be asked to give up eight hours --

WINSTEAD: And I think you`re disregarding the -- when you look at the totality of a bill like North Carolina, the biggest thing is how people process that and then what is their motivation? I think that you`re leaving that out of the equation by saying it`s not necessarily so and we have to watch what we say.

When people talk about a litany of things, including if your kid votes in college you can`t no longer use them as a tax credit and if they don`t vote where they grow up those things make people go, I don`t want to do it and I don`t want to discredit it.

But the other thing I would like to say is when you look at these voter laws and you look at how -- it`s like the greed of, let`s add more, let`s add more and unconstitutional thing, just like they did with shoving in all these reproductive rights bills. Taxpayers are paying for legislation that is probably unconstitutional, that judges are going to block and then pay for that lawsuit and then if they`re also paying for some organization that wants to fight the laws in court, taxpayers are paying for all sides of this war. And they should be angry about it.

KORNACKI: All right. I`ve got to cut it off there, unfortunately.

WINSTEAD: I`m sorry.

KORNACKI: No. I would like to -- Anthony Weiner, though, we`ve got to get him in. He said he was not surprised about the explicit photos and messages that surfaced this week, and how about the reaction from voters? That`s next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KORNACKI: Here it is. You know it was coming.

Anthony Weiner`s improbable campaign for mayor of New York may be falling apart before our eyes -- thanks to those new revelations this week about lurid, online conversations with women he`d never met. New revelations which hat came to light after a gossip Web site called "The Dirty" posted messages Weiner exchanged last year with a woman, involved activities that took place after Weiner resigned from Congress in 2011.

With his wife, Huma Abedin, by his side, Weiner made a defiant statement on Tuesday. As the week went on, he struggled to address specific questions about his behavior.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: How many women were there? Can you remember?

ANTHONY WEINER (D), NEW YORK CITY MAYORAL CANDIDATE : There are more than -- there are few. I don`t have a specific number for you. It`s not dozens and dozens. It is six to 10, I suppose. But I can`t tell you absolutely what someone else is going to consider inappropriate or not.

REPORTER: Were they sexual? How many conversations did you have with women after you resigned that were sexual in nature?

WEINER: I don`t believe I had any more than three.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KORNACKI: This is already impacting Weiner`s standing in the race. The Quinnipiac poll taken just before this week`s drama had had him in first place, leading City Council Speaker Christine Quinn by four points. But in a snap poll conducted on Wednesday, Weiner plummeted to third place among likely Democratic voters.

You have Quinn there at 26 percent. The public advocate -- if you don`t live in New York -- yes, the position exists. The public advocate Bill De Blasio at 17 percent. Weiner at 16. 2009 Democratic nominee Bill Thompson at 15 percent. And the city controller John Liu at 7 percent.

Basil, I want to start with you.

(LAUGHTER)

KORNACKI: Now, full disclosure here. You worked on Hillary Clinton`s staff and you worked with Huma Abedin and I just want to make sure and I think Anthony Weiner --

SMIKLE: Some client of mine several years ago, yes.

KORNACKI: Glad we brought you in.

So, he is your former client and you know Huma. So, you`re watching this and what do you think?

SMIKLE: It is very difficult to watch. It is heartbreaking.

Listen, I think Anthony displays qualities that I think a lot of people have responded to and said we would like him to be mayor because whether you have paid attention to his policy, you see him being a fighter and you`ve seen that on the floor of the House.

But I think what`s happening with Huma now and people are starting being of sort of two minds. On the one hand, they respect her for coming out in the way that she did because she`s such an extraordinarily private person and a lot of us who worked with her realize that she`s so private and for her to come out the way she has, we all sort of respected that because she`s shouldered it.

On the other hand, it gets to point where you look at him and say, my God, why did he drag her through this? And that`s where people are right now. And you`re starting to see these numbers fall. He was doing so well in the African-American community. I think a lot of that is going to his opponents like Bill Thompson who is probably the beneficiary of a lot of that defection.

But I think you see a lot of other folks go to the undecided column. It was very, very difficult to watch. It was heartbreaking to watch. But I think he`s still in it. I think he`s going to go full steam.

KORNACKI: Anybody who has been watching this show is probably no secret. I have not been the world`s biggest Anthony Weiner fan. Even before -- having to do with anything with this, I`ve always found the guy to be -- with all due respect, somebody who he -- he cuts corners. I see him, he gets a lot of -- he is good at getting attention. He`s god at getting on TV. He`s got to sort of making a scene.

I`ve never seen him interested in putting in the work behind the scenes. That 9/11 first responders bill, the famous moment on the House floor rallying against the Republicans, he didn`t do any work on that. Carol Maloney, it was Jerrold Nadler, they put in the work behind the scenes and Anthony Weiner goes to the floor and he makes himself the star of the 9/11 first responders drama.

And I just saw that repeating itself over and over in this guy`s career, and I just look at that and I see narcissism and I say just --

WINSTEAD: I feel the same way. I feel the narcissism. If this was not a sexting scandal and it was something where Anthony Weiner just kept inserting himself in the conversation, I would still be grossed out.

Now, we have a guy who literally has more issues than the city of New York and all we do is talk about his issues and I`m sorry, when you go on television and you say, I`m not sure how many people I`ve texted, my junk, too. It`s like I know exactly how many people I texted my junk to. And, by the way, when you text your junk -- this is just for everybody --

SMIKLE: Just so we know.

WINSTEAD: It`s a by request situation. It is not on spec.

(LAUGHTER)

WINSTEAD: And that is just something that America needs to know because this one seems to not even understand the decorum behind it.

And putting your wife in front --

(CROSSTALK)

SMIKLE: But you hit on an important point because in all of this, we`re not really hearing policy.

WINSTEAD: Yes.

SMIKLE: We`re not hearing policy. All of that is getting lost and New York has so many problems.

KORNACKI: And his, his claim is, oh, you know, we should get back to the issues and there are all sorts of other candidates out there in this race. To say, you know, let`s talk about policy versus let`s just ignore this and elevate me to mayor in the name of talking about policy seems like a big --

VAVRECK: I keep waiting for him to say, you know, this is just proof that the NSA really isn`t --

(LAUGHTER)

STEELE: You know as an outsider from the Washington metropolitan area watching this whole drama --

WINSTEAD: Because they don`t sext down there.

STEELE: They don`t sext down there, no, not all. But just stick a fork in this guy in New York and move on. I mean, the fact of the matter is he may stay in this race, but that number will drop from third place to fourth place to fifth place.

I think the voters here, despite his wherewithal of that sense of urgency that this guy is always fighting for me, at the end of the day, I think it boils down to what do you say, what do you produce from that fight? He`s produced nothing, except for his junk on the web. And I think that is something that people just don`t want to tolerate.

As to Huma -- you know, I watched her and I had a Bill Clinton moment where I was thinking to myself. I feel your pain. I could see it in her face.

I wondered and questioned, despite, you know, her cries of I support him, I love him -- why were you there in that moment? It was humiliating for her and I really think New Yorkers feel that and that doesn`t help him.

KORNACKI: I think I agree with you that he`s fading out, but he is sort of like Rasputin. He never fully gets --

SMIKLE: He`s got millions of dollars to burn.

KORNACKI: So, we`ll see. I`ll feel better of that prediction after the primary.

The one vote that shattered Congress` partisan divided and that pitted Chris Christie against Rand Paul, that`s next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KORNACKI: Proposal to restrict the National Security Agency`s bulk collection of Americans phone records was narrowly defeated in the House this week by just by just 12 votes and dramatic showdown that played out on the House floor, despite the strenuous opposition of both party`s leadership in the White House. The amendment to rein in NSA surveillance activity and the activity that was first revealed by leaker Edward Snowden was defeated 217-205. They brought together coalition of lawmakers that we`ve never seen before and we are likely to never see again.

Tea Party newcomer Congressman Justin Amash joined with liberal veteran Congressman John Conyers, both from Michigan, to co-sponsor the measure.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JUSTIN AMASH (R), MICHIGAN: We`re here today for a very simple reason, to defend the Fourth Amendment, to defend the privacy of each and every American.

REP. JOHN CONYERS (D), MICHIGAN: All this amendment is intended to do is to curtail the ongoing dragnet collection and storage of the personal records of innocent Americans.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KORNACKI: The coalition that came together to ultimately defeat the administration also brought together some unlikely allies such as Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Iowa Republican Steve King, Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann.

The day after the vote, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie criticized lawmakers, including from his own party, who have railed against surveillance programs.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), NEW JERSEY: This strain of liberalism that`s going through both parties right now and making big headlines I think is a very dangerous thought. As a governor now of a state that lost the second most people on 9/11 behind the state of New York and still seeing those families, John, I love all these esoteric debates that people are getting in.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Senator Rand Paul, for example.

CHRISTIE: Listen, you can name any number of people who have obligation (ph) and he`s one of them. I mean, these esoteric intellectual debates, I want them to come to New Jersey and sit across from the widows and the orphans and have that conversation.

(END VIDEOI CLIP)

KORNACKI: Well, that conversation, Lynn, might be part of the debate over the next few years in the Republican Party. I`m looking at Chris Christie and Rand Paul, we might see this conversation play out between them. There are just interesting numbers that came out this week. The evolution of national public opinion and particularly Tea Party public opinion on the question of civil liberties.

Just four years ago when the question was put to Tea Party Republicans about whether the government is going too far to restrict civil liberties or not far enough to protect the country, overwhelmingly, it was -- you know, 63 percent to 20 percent saying not far enough to protect the country and now, it`s overwhelming the other direction, 55 to 31, too far to restrict civil liberties.

So, there`s been this huge shift, I don`t think not coincidentally in the Obama era by Tea Party Republicans but really kind of changing what traditionally has been the Republican Party`s posture of national security.

VAVRECK: Yes, I think there are a couple interesting things going on here. One is, how do you feel about your personal information being out there or being spied upon by people who you don`t know are watching it. That`s an interesting conversation given that people freely use Google and they search for things and the internet is forever.

But second to that, does this conversation, does this rhetoric become a focal point as we go into future elections and in the Republican Party separate candidates? And I think that, you know, my sense of that is that not as much as it might look like it will now. I think that, you know, it`s 10 years or more since 9/11 but we are safer today because of actions the government has taken.

You see that repeatedly in polls. Americans think that. And across other countries, too, when they look at Americans, they say Americans are safer because of what the government has done. And at the end of the day, that`s an opinion that can`t be discounted. And so, people feel safer and they credit the government with that.

KORNACKI: Well, they feel safer. Maybe they credit the government, but at the same time, you know, we talk among that shift of Tea Partiers, there is a shift, similar shift in the same direction playing out among all voters.

WINSTEAD: And I guess sometimes I get and I know feelings matter and sometimes facts should present themselves and as somebody like talking about this on big levels this way about my pay grade, but I just know when you look at how this is done and you look at the FISA court, the handpicked John Roberts court, and then you look at some of these Congress people like Steve King and Michele Bachmann who have questionable -- I don`t know -- I`m going to say intellect.

And, so, when you know that they`re the people supposedly overseeing and then you hear senators saying, we really don`t have much information. We really have not been reported to in the way we should, it just as a person who has that much information as a regular person, I think why not look into this and why not -- why would you vote against this? I don`t get it.

KORNACKI: Michael, we`re running short on time here. But I want to get you where the Republicans -- traditionally, the Republican Party has been the hawkish national security one and want aggressive government on national security and it really feels how marginalized Ron Paul was in the past.

It really feels that might be changing right now.

STEELE: I think it is changing and I think that there`s that libertarian element, which I was surprised to hear Christie call it out the way he did in sort of negative way because it is going to be I think part of the main conversation going forward.

I think the poll numbers that you cite reflect something important here. The first poll reflects what people didn`t know. The second poll reflects what people now know. And that`s the difference.

WINSTEAD: Yes.

STEELE: When people know the extent to which the government is holding that information may or may not be using that information, that personal, private information, their attitudes change because all of a sudden now big government, big brother, has more on me than I thought they had and Lord knows what I have been putting on my Facebook page or tweeting out, you know?

KORNACKI: And we say, you know bipartisan in the House and it`s bipartisan public opinion. It`s basically the same ratios, Democrat and Republican, about that balance between civil liberties and a strong national security.

STEELE: Sitting down with those families from 9/11, that`s a nice emotional appeal that Christie was putting out there. But at the end of the day, that`s not going to hold sway against my privacy --

KORNACKI: That`s going to be real, because what he was articulating there was sort of what drove the debate for the decade after 9/11 on national security. Let`s see how that plays in the next year. That`s going to be interesting to watch.

What do we know now that we didn`t know last week? My answers are after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KORNACKI: So what do we know now that we didn`t know last week?

Well, based on reporting from David Corn of "Mother Jones", we now know that there is a brand-new conservative group in Washington called Groundswell. It includes, among others, former Florida Congressman Allen West, and Ginny Thomas, the Tea Party activist and the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. They`ve been meeting privately since the beginning of the year with the goal of taking on not just President Obama on the left, but also the Republican Party`s establishment, figures like Karl Rove.

According to Corn, the group has been trying to develop talking points for fellow Groundswellers, if that`s what we call them, to use in the media. In notes from the group`s February 28 meeting, include a rather frank discussion of the Republican Party`s struggle with non-white voters. One idea, the notes say, we are failing the propaganda battle of minorities, terms like GOP, Tea Party, conservative communicate racism. Alternative, Fredrick Douglass Republican. It changes minds.

Well, we don`t know if that`s the magic solution for the GOP, but we do know that the next time Groundswell might want to spell Frederic Douglass` name right.

We now know former California Congressman Pete Stark is having a little found with his leftover campaign funds. Back in November, Stark, who is a notoriously prickly congressman, whose behavior had become somewhat erratic toward the end of his tenure, was drummed out of office by a fellow Democrat, Eric Swalwell. Remember that California has that new election system, where candidates from the same party could end up running against each other in general elections.

Anyway, although Stark has actually outspent Swalwell by a 2-1 margin, he still had a sizable chunk of change left in the bank when the election was over, and so, he threw a party. According to "National Journal", Stark used some of his remaining cash to pay for a tent and a band called the Hula Monsters as a thank you for his former staff members.

And as "National Journal" points out, federal election rules state that campaign funds can only be used for political purposes, but the federal election commission hasn`t said anything about Stark`s party, at least not yet.

And, finally, we now know the most and least honest places in America. That`s based on a nationwide test by the beverage maker, Honest Tea. The company rated an experiment in every state, plus the District of Columbia, where they set up unattended stands for people to take Honest Tea for $1. Payments could left in a lock box at the beverage stand.

The test found that Alabama and Hawaii were the most honest, where 100 percent of the people paid their dollar, while Washington, D.C. was the least honest, where 80 percent of the people -- or only 80 percent of the people paid.

While no one is probably surprised by these results, we`re waiting for Snapple facts to confirm them.

I want to find out what my guests know now that they didn`t know when the week began.

And we`ll start with you, Lizz.

WINSTEAD: If you are overwhelmed by the anti-choice legislation that is coming in all of these different state legislations, you can go to the Website, aisfor.com. And they keep this amazing running title about all of this stuff. So it keeps you informed and lets you know what`s happening in your state.

KORNACKI: All right. Michael?

STEELE: Last week, Mort Zuckerman wrote a piece in the "Wall Street Journal" about the jobless recovery and how that`s not really recovery at all. And I think that that`s going to be a sustaining argument going forward, into the fall discussion, as you talked earlier in the show.

And one little nugget of that, I think at people need to keep in mind, even among those who have a job, 77 percent of them are living paycheck to paycheck. So, a lot of Americans out there are still hurting, and the Congress and the president had better focus on that, because next year, it could have more surprises for both than they anticipate.

KORNACKI: And, Basil?

SMIKLE: In cities like New York and Boston, where we`re electing mayors this year, these cities also have mayoral-controlled of schools. And there could be some interesting changes in mayoral control, education reform, particularly school choice and charter schools as the unions start to gain back power in some of these cities.

KORNACKI: And, Lynn?

VAVRECK: And I think what I know now that I didn`t know then is that even though everyone agrees the service sector is the next middle class in this country, that we are a really long way from any kind of public policy that moves the public and private sectors together to change that service sector majority to the middle class majority. It`s a big problem and there aren`t solutions.

KORNACKI: All right. And I know that the pastry plate`s unusually empty this week. I guess everybody was hungry today.

Thanks for getting up and thank you for joining us today for up. Join us tomorrow, Sunday morning at 8:00 when I have "The Guardians", Ana Marie Cox, and Josh Barro of "Business Insider," and MSNBC`s very own Melissa Harris-Perry. She will be here, too.

But before she joins us tomorrow, she`s got her very own show that you won`t want to miss. That is coming up next.

On today`s "MELISSA HARRIS-PERRY", what Eric Holder is doing to combat efforts to suppress the votes, even as states like North Carolina pass some of the most extreme measures yet. Plus, the one and only Iyanla Vanzant joins Melissa live on set. Stick around for that. "MHP" is next.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.END

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